OAKLAND, Calif. -- The outrage over Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed school budget cuts spilled into the streets Friday when Bay Area students and teachers rallied in hope of preventing nearly $5 billion from disappearing.

Students from Galileo Academy and several other schools sought to bring the issue into the public domain.

“I want people to open their eyes up and know what’s really going on,” said Galileo senior Javohn Cherry.

Other students expressed concern that lawmakers don’t see their education as a priority.

“I feel like the state doesn’t realize how important education is,” said sophomore Lina Lin.

Kristy Morrison, an English teacher at Galileo, has been working to help organize Friday’s protest for the last month.

“Classes are already overcrowded,” she said, “and it’s going to get worse.”

Morrison said that students need to show adults that they can be active, in a nonviolent way, and that they are serious.

“Every wonderful thing this country—women’s right to vote, civil rights—everything happened with day to day people,” she said. “No politician made this happen.”

Morrison, who is tenured, said she works nearly 80 hours weekly, but nonetheless joined the list of teachers statewide who last week received pink slips from the their school.

“It’s discouraging and insulting and a big problem,” she said, “when people with such an education like myself that work this hard are not acknowledged are the first to go when the state is in a financial crisis.”

Morrison’s pink slip has since been retracted, but she said it is important that people continue coming together to learn that speaking out and getting active can be a valuable lesson.

“These kids are learning for the first time in their lives that if they don’t speak up for themselves, no one else is going to,” she said.